Archive for the 'ACOGs' Category

A field grade or staff officer has problems with his coming deployment to Afghanistan. Is it related to the debacle that Afghanistan has become? Or perhaps to the under-manning of the COPs, or if it’s N2K perhaps he knows that it’s a doomed mission? Perhaps he is concerned over our teaming up with criminals like Hamid Karai and his brother Wali Karzai? Maybe it’s our throwing enough cash around to corrupt most of the locals with whom we engage? Or maybe he has a problem with the sorry rules of engagement, or the lack of a coherent strategy passed down from the top, or the horrible trend in green on blue attacks?

When the so-called “Jesus rifle” came to light in Jan. 2010, it sparked constitutional and security concerns, and a maelstrom of media coverage. The Pentagon ordered the removal of the secret code referring to Bible passages that the manufacturer had inscribed on the scopes of the standard issue rifles carried by U.S. soldiers into battle in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nearly three years later — despite the military’s assertion that is making “good progress” — the code remains on many rifles deploying to Afghanistan, which some soldiers argue is endangering their lives by reinforcing suspicions that the United States is waging a crusade against Muslims.

“I honestly believe that this is a dangerous situation. It literally could be a matter of life and death for a soldier if he fell into the wrong hands,” said an Army officer who spoke to NBC News from Fort Hood, Texas. “The fact that combatant commanders are not following (rules set by Department of Defense) commanders is very disturbing to me.”

The officer, who asked not to be named out of fear of reprisal from commanders, provided a photograph, taken on Tuesday, of the code on an M-4 rifle assigned to a soldier who is slated to deploy to Afghanistan in coming weeks.

The code stamped into the metal of the soldier’s ACOG (Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight) ends with the model number with “JN8:12.” which refers to the New Testament passage, John 8:12, which reads: “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

Other rifle scopes among some 250,000 provided by Michigan-based manufacturer Trijicon were imprinted with codes that point to passages in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Corinthians and Revelation, ABC News reported when it broke the news in 2010.

Trijicon, reportedly had been following this practice for at least two decades, and it was well known to gun enthusiasts.

Like my son said to me, “The dude who is worried about this needs to find something else to do with his life.”

Yea, I’ve got a feeling he is about to get something else to do. Either he will be a fobbit and never leave the comfort of Hesco barriers, working PowerPoint slides all his deployment (in which case the Pashto- or Dari-speaking Afghans won’t ever get to read his English ACOG and he gets to worry over the question, “Daddy, what did you do during the war?”), or he will be outside the wire, in which case, if this is the kind of thing he is worried about, he will get his ass shot off.

Either way, I’ve said before that I will take a Biblical ACOG any day. Calling Trijicon? A free ACOG, please? I’ll take as much Scripture as you can fit on it.